HER Royal Highness the Princess Royal became the first representative of the royal family to visit Silsden, when she came at the end of September in 1934 to officially open the 14-acre playing fields. She is seen here with chairman Richard Fletcher.
The occasion struck “a mackintosh day”, with “a symphony of thudding raindrops on a forest of umbrellas”, yet 3,000 turned out with their “full-throated voices bidding welcome”. The Silsden Silver Band played and the Silsden Male Voice Choir sang.
Mr Fletcher wryly observed that the rain “would at least be welcomed by those communities which had suffered for so long owing to the drought”, while the Keighley News thought that, had the ceremony “been held submarine in the estate’s fine paddling pool, the many thousand spectators could hardly have passed a much wetter afternoon”.
The photograph has been supplied by Mr Ian Brierley, of Bridgehouse Lane, Haworth.
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